BY CHARLES LAITON
Vice-President Kembo Mohadi’s former wife, Tambudzani Muleya, has lost her US$13 394 per month maintenance claim after the High Court dismissed her application saying there was no need for her former husband to continue maintaining her following the nullification of the couple’s marriage last year.
Mohadi and Muleya’s marriage was dissolved in March last year and soon after the nullification, Muleya approached the court seeking post-divorce maintenance, but High Court judge Justice Ester Muremba said Muleya simply wanted to fix the VP.
“… What is evident is that the applicant (Tambudzani Muleya) does not want to live off her own assets, but on the respondent’s (Kembo Mohadi). The impression the applicant creates is that she wants to fix the respondent for leaving her and eventually divorcing her…,” the judge said.
Muleya argued that while she was staying with Mohadi before their marriage hit turbulence, the couple purchased various businesses which were now being controlled by the VP and she was now surviving from a minimal allowance from her position as Senator.
In her claim, Muleya had demanded that Mohadi pays expenses for her driver, gardeners for two houses, domestic workers for two houses, fuel for all her travels, security, groceries, cellphone and airtime allowances; over and above all the other movable and immovable properties that Mohadi had earlier offered her in their divorce consent paper.
However, her demands and assertions were dismissed by Justice Muremba in a judgment delivered on March 5, 2020. The judge said Muleya was simply refusing to accept reality.
“The argument by the applicant that respondent’s current wife enjoys all amenities and benefits she is claiming is a clear testimony that the applicant is refusing to come to terms with the fact that respondent is no longer her husband that someone else is now in her former place. She resents the fact that the new wife is enjoying the benefits she ought to have been enjoying,” the judge stated.
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“I do not think that the applicant was being truthful with the court. The applicant’s list of expenses shows that she wants the respondent to pay for each and every item of her expenditure. She wants him to pay for her food, fuel, driver, workers, old cars, utility bills, dog feed, medication and holidays … the parties having shared assets by mutual consent, I do not see why the applicant now wants to benefit from the respondent’s assets and not from hers …”
Justice Muremba further said while Muleya is fairly advanced in age and had greatly diminished prospects of marriage, she, however, was awarded capital assets following the divorce.
“She got three pieces of real estate, two of which are developed, more than 500 herd of cattle, a motor vehicle, a Discovery 4 Land Rover, 50% share in a company, more than US$25 000 in value of farm assets and household goods. There is no doubt that these assets can provide her with the income she needs to support herself. She can still live comfortably even if she does not dispose of any of the two houses awarded to her,” she said.
“With the assets awarded to her, the applicant cannot claim that she is now living a miserable life and that she cannot afford a decent meal. She is a legislator and she earns income every month. She has no rentals to pay and she has no dependents at all.”
Mohadi was represented by Norman Mugiya.
